The present invention relates to a method of detecting and tracking unknown broadcast content items that are periodically encountered by automatic detection and tracking systems. It is known in the art that detection of broadcast content, for example, music broadcast over radio, includes the sampling the of the identified content to compute numerical representations of features of the content, sometimes referred to in the art as a fingerprint, or in the related patent application PCT/US05/04802, filed on Feb. 16, 2004, which is incorporated herein by reference, a pattern vector. These known pattern vectors are stored in a database and while the broadcast signals are received, the same computation is applied to the incoming signal. Then, the detection process entails searching for matches between the incoming computed pattern vectors and the vast database of pre-created pattern vectors associated with the identity of known content.
This system runs into problems when content that has not been registered in the database yet and is being broadcast anyway. In the prior art, these unknown or unmatched programming items would be ignored. This invention is directed to address this shortcoming by determining when a likely piece of programming content has been detected, tracking such detections, and then submitting the piece for human identification in order that proper publishing or other indicia of identity be associated with the content. The system automatically determines which portions of the broadcast signal are previously un-registered content.